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A chronological exploration of literary or film milestones in geek culture from 1964 on. Excuse the ADHD as I discuss other things as well.

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2004: Battlestar Galactica – Part 2

Well kids, here’s the reboot. I watched the 2004 3 hour miniseries that retooled the show that got to explore many of the ideas that, due to its cancellation after one season, the original was not. Everything kind of lines up for me watching this show. A – it’s summer and I need a new show to watch with at least a couple of seasons worth of marathon viewing, B – It’s in my timeline for the blog (ok, so I got a little ahead of myself with Ant-Man, wanna fight about it?) and C) Commander Adama is played by Edward James Olmos, who has recently been announced as a media guest for the Saskatoon Comic and Entertainment Expo which I volunteer at.

This is a retooled retelling of the original story. Really just the first episode. There a lot of changes though. Starbuck and Appollo and Boomer are all call signs rather than actual names. There is an added element of politics as the Secretary of Education is on the Galactica at the time of attack, and thus becomes the President of the 12 colonies. Apollo has troubled relations with Adama and Starbuck because his brother’s death, which is not part of the Cylon invasion as it had in the original. Ballard isn’t outright evil, instead he is more coerced into evil by the Cylon in his head. Starbuck and Boomer are women (kind of, Boomer is a Cylon). Oh yeah, and Cylons can look like people, and instead of piloting ships, they are the ships. So that’s cool.

But honestly, while the acting was better and the plot was modernized and more realistic I still feel like it dragged on a little. It took a lot of set up just to get to the Cylon attack. They took a 45 minute episode, added some history, added some plot, added some characters and added some action, but in the end it was still a 45 minute episode dragged out over 3 hours.

But during that 3 hours there were some super cool moments. Those moments came in the establishment of how bad ass some of the characters are. The new president was surprisingly interesting to me, maybe because she’s an underdog. What made her stand out was that she commanded authority. She knew her place and made others know theirs, including Apollo AND Commander Adama, whom she butt heads with but eventually gained an understanding with. She was not trained to be president but she made calculated, deliberate choices and did not second guess or waiver from,

Starbuck is again a brash, young, hotshot, who can get into some trouble, but is also just as skilled at getting out of it. At the end of the miniseries Apollo’s fighter is running out of power and she has to drag him back to the Galactica. Literally. She interlocks their wings and flies right into the hanger. They come in fast and strong to escape almost certain death, and almost don’t, but she knew what she was doing and it paid off, and it looked awesome.

Lastly, great Commander Adama showed everyone why he was the man to lead the military, twice. The fist time was the best, when he… sorry did I say “fist time”? Well it was “fist time” when he brought out mitts and pounded to death the first person he realized was actually a Cylon infiltrator. And let me tell you, if you don’t already know, those Cylons copy us all the way down to the blood and the bone. I will say again, bad ass.

I have heard that the show picks up after the miniseries, so I will keep going. I did enjoy it, I have heard great things, and I need to have more to talk about with Olmos, other than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., when he comes to Saskatoon, and we become best friends.